


Hello, My Name Is Tony Stark, And I'm A Vampire

by Dillian



Series: Vampire-Asgard [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, M/M, The Ten Rings (Marvel), Vampire Loki, Vampire Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-17 09:05:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11272311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: Second part of a series, that starts withWhat Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.  Odin is All-Father, AKA, First Vampire, or leader, of a loose network that goes by the name of Asgard.  Recently his control is slipping, worrying his trusted subordinates, Thor and Loki.  Tony, who's met them before (and has unresolved issues with Loki), now meets members or The Ten Rings, an insurgent-group that wants to take Odin down.If you're familiar with Iron Man MCU-canon at all, this story is an AU retelling of the first movie.  And it's the second part of a three-part series.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Take me out tonight  
> Where there’s music and there’s people  
> Who are young and alive.
> 
> Driving in your car,  
> I never, never want to go home  
> Because I haven’t got one anymore.
> 
> Take me out tonight  
> Because I want to see people,  
> And I want to see light.
> 
> Driving in your car,  
> Oh, please don’t drop me home  
> Because it’s not my home, its their home,  
> And I’m welcome no more.”  
> \-- The Smiths, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”

**_The Avengers_** **,** **_Iron Man_** **,** **_Thor_** **, and** **_Captain America_** **, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics.  This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

I’m a pretty horrible person.  This probably comes as a surprise to nobody except me.  Weird, finding out you’re a horrible person.  And then when you try to do something about it…  How do you even know if you’re making a difference?  And the people you hurt:  What do you do about them?  And what do you do about trying to live your life differently?  I mean, are you supposed to change everything?

Okay, nobody wants to sit here and listen to me whining.  And I do have a story to tell (although I’m still not exactly sure what it is).  I guess I’d better just get started, here we go:  This isn’t where the story starts, you understand, but I’m starting from when I first realized that something was going on.

To begin with, I was in a bar.  I was there because I’d managed to get hung up on someone.  He was a guy named Loki, and we’d spent one beautiful weekend together.  After that, he wanted to continue things…  I think that was what made it stick in my head so much, because I’m mostly used to the kinds of guys who are just as happy to say good-bye as I am.  And as I was saying, there was this guy Loki, he and I spent three wonderful days together, then at the end of it…

There’s the other thing about Loki:  He’s a vampire.  I thought that mattered, that’s why I said good-bye.  God, I was so stupid.

Anyway, like I said, I’m at this bar.  Real dive kind of a place, Haight Street, San Francisco.  Kind of place where the light’s low inside, even in the middle of the day, because the windows still all fogged-up from the days when they allowed smoking in there, and no sunshine can get through.  And I was there in the middle of the day sometimes.  I was also there, lots of times, in the middle of the night, and I was in a lot of other bars just like it.  I was there for the drinking, but I was mostly there for the sex.  

After Loki, it was like my brain couldn’t settle down, you know?  It was like one part of me was always saying, “Stark, you idiot, you’ve let the best thing that ever happened to you slip away, are you crazy?”  But another, bigger part of me would be saying over and over, “But he’s a vampire, he’s a fang,” etcetera, etcetera...

That word by the way?  Fang?  Mortal slang, the Aesir hate it.  ...Now let’s get back to the story.

Like I was saying?  Dive bar.  Pretty much as per usual for how my life was going, back then.  Dive bar, when I should have been working, and usually I didn’t even tell anyone when I was leaving.  Made Pepper hold down the fort.  She’s good at it, yeah, but it was a dick move just to drop it on her like that.  As I said?  I’m a horrible person.  But where was I?  That’s right, the bar:  Guy comes in.  There was always a guy, or two guys, or three, or however many.  And he was kind of the bear type.  (He was like the anti-Loki, which was the appeal.)

Bear-type guy, like an Arab bear.  He was big, fat on top of hard muscles, and kind of a scrubby beard, and the eyes…  Intense eyes.  I should have picked up on it, because they were just like Loki’s eyes.  Only of course I didn’t, because I was stupid (and drunk), and so I went with him.

And, godawful part of town, and I go there with Mr. Bear.  Warehouses all around, hardly any street-lights, like that.  Cab stops and we get out…  Maybe there’s this leetle warning bell deep inside my brain somewhere, but I’m ignoring it.  And all thnese guys started crowding around while we were still on the street, but I just thought that made things all the sexier.  And, into the warehouse we go, right?  All of us together?  And then right inside, all of them pounced.

I don’t know.  You a voyeur?  You want to know what it felt like when they turned me?  Eh, never mind, I’ll tell it, just to get it off my chest.

Feeling of anger, that was the first part.  I came in with Mr. Arab-Bear, and then he immediately went off somewhere.  “You’re dismissed, Bakar,” another one says.  The leader, you understand, he was some bigger, head completely shaved.  I’m mad when he tells my guy to leave, but I’m also thinking he’s kind of sexy himself.

He was the leader, like I said.  It’s always the leader of the nest, who turns you.  And then afterwards…  Sometimes I wonder, is there still part of me that’s loyal to Master Raza, and I’ll think about sleeper-agents, Manchurian Candidates, that sort of thing.  It’s hard to dig that kind of loyalty out of you.   _Master Raza’s blood runs in my veins now._  Jesus god, what a disgusting thing to think about.

Maybe that’s where I should have started my story:  Hello, my name is Tony Stark, and I’m a vampire.  I don’t feed on people, so you don’t have to be scared, and I’m…  I’m pretty damn sure I’m not loyal to the Ten Rings?  I think I proved that when…  But I’m just going to tell you this story the way it happened.

Okay, where was I?  Warehouse, Bakar brings me there, but then he goes away.  All of them kind of pulled back, after Master Raza claimed me.  Whole crowd, like, 40 of them, all pulling back like whipped puppies.  And mumble-mumble, not a lot of talk, but a little of it.  Voices that said, “Dead this, and dead that.”  I think I remember them saying stuff like that, but I’m not 100% sure.  But I remember Master Raza saying, “No,” and I remember him coming over to me, all the rest of them sort of standing back.

And what happened after that?  Eh, you don’t want to hear what happened after that.

_Rape is disgusting and immoral, and everyone knows it.  And this was like rape, this was someone taking something of mine, without my…  I don’t know if this was the same as rape, because thank god, I’ve never been raped.  What was horrible about this was that I did want it, first I didn’t, and then even though I didn’t want to want it, I did.  Jesus god, I hope rape’s not that way, I hope rape-survivors at least don’t have to deal with that.  Because that was the worst part of the whole thing.  Listen, someone just taking something from you?  You can get over that.  Try getting over realizing that you wanted them to take it, you practically gave it to them._

_Me, looking at Master Raza:  He was looking down at me, rat-bastard face, I’ve seen him a few times since then, and shit, but he’s a smug bastard.  But I remember what I was feeling, and it was love.  Try getting past knowing something like that about yourself.  And I was looking into his eyes…  They were so hypnotic, I was thinking, like, that’s literally what was going through my head, like, in so many words, “Those hypnotic eyes.”  And he says to me, “I’m going to turn you, Stark,” and I was like…_

Never mind what I was like.  You don’t want to know anyway.  At any rate, he turned me.  If you don’t know, you’re sort of limp, afterward ~~(kind of like how you are after you’ve just had the best orgasm of your life…~~ ~~ _Jesus Christ, Stark, do you have to think things like that?_~~ ~~)~~.  But anyway, I was kind of limp and disoriented, and then a whole bunch of them grabbed hold of me, and right like that, they chained me to the nearest wall, even though, you know, I was a vampire too by then.  One good feed…  But of course I hadn’t fed, and they’re all talking, some to me, some to each other.  Something about, “Collateral, you’re collateral…”  I pretty much know what they said, because of what came afterward, but I’m telling you about how it felt while it was happening.   I heard something vague about, “Collateral,” which I’m not even 100% sure that I did hear, and then everything sort of fogged out for a while, and when I woke up again, I was all alone.

That was the first part of what happened.  But the story’s not over yet, not by a long shot.   _Stick around._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, I'm a runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load,  
> Got a world of trouble on my mind.  
> Lookin' for a lover who won't blow my cover, she's so hard to find.  
> Take it easy, take it easy,  
> Don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.  
> Come on baby, don't say maybe.  
> I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me”  
> \-- The Eagles, “Take It Easy”

I don’t like talking about this next part, but I swore I would tell you this story, and so I’m going to.  Bear with me, okay?

First of all, here’s a thing you have to know:  Vampire senses?  Not like mortal senses, not at all. Not as in they turn everything up to eleven, which they do, but it’s more than that.  We’re talking like a new world, more, like a whole new dimension.  It feels like you’ve just being given the keys to a kingdom, or like being handed everything you’ve ever dreamed about, in your whole life.  But it’s a dream.  And it has a bad side, you know?  Just like every dream can turn into a nightmare?

Being locked up in that warehouse after the Ten Rings left, that was my nightmare.  I had all the vampire-senses, from Master Raza turning me, but there I was, right?  I was chained to a wall, vampire-proof chains, because we can break through the normal kind, understand?  Pitch-black room, but it wasn’t pitch-black to me, because of the vampire-senses, and that place was alive, sounds…  And especially the _smells_.

Smell of food, that was the biggest thing.  Here’s something you maybe don’t know about vampires:  After you’re turned, you feel like you have to feed.  Like it’s life-and-death urgent.  Well, what did the Ten Rings not allow me to do?  Three guesses…  There, you got it, didn’t you?

This was the sort of thing a person doesn’t like to think about after it happens, but it happened, and it’s part of the story, and so I’d better tell this part too.  This was like being chained up in a banquet, understand?  Like, best food in the world, best drinks, best everything.  And you’re hungrier than you’ve ever been in your whole life before, and there you are.  And you’re thirsty too, like you’re about to die just from the thirstiness alone, never mind the hunger.  It’s like being chained up when you’re starving to death, everything starts to look so good.  Like, this was rats, bugs even, that was what there was in the warehouse.

I could sense the food outside the warehouse too, and it made me even crazier.  Vampire-senses, remember?  Like I said?  A bird lands on a wire a mile away, and I can hear it, and I can _smell_ it.  Smell like roast chicken…  This would have been a blue jay, maybe, or…  What are the little brown ones called?  It would be just a little, generic bird, but the smell of it, _oh my god_.

First thing after I got out of there?  I fed.  Not on a mortal, so don’t get so scared.  I don’t do it that way anyway, so don’t worry about it.  Donation-blood, in this case.  All of Heimdall’s men carry some of that around, just in case.  Asgardian cop cars… -- Did you know there were Asgardian police?  There are.  Also firefighters, emergency workers…  We have emergencies just like everyone else, don’t we?   -- ...Like I was saying, the cars:  Freezers in all of them, and they’ll keep some blood in there, just in case.

So, like I was saying, I fed.  Donation-blood, which I of course made a huge mess with, remember, I was new at all that.  Remember where I told you about watching Odin feed that one time?  And all the judgments I had because he made such a mess of himself?  It’s hard to drink that stuff neatly.  I made a way worse mess of myself, I know, because the next thing the two cops did was to stop somewhere with a bathroom, so I could clean myself up.  

And they gave me some clothes to put on.  Asgardian clothes.  And it weirded me the hell out, putting those things on, it was like giving up a part of myself.  ...No, you want to know what it was like?

Weird feeling, and it’s horrible now when I look back on it, but at the time?  What I was feeling then?   _Feeling like I was coming home._  Like, I’m not me anymore, I’m this other, different person.  I’m a vampire, and I can’t live where I was, I can’t live how I was living, anymore, that’s what I was thinking.  Like this poem, that I got from Loki.  You know me, I’m not a poetry kind of a person, but he is, and he quoted this one to me:  Line from the poem goes, “Home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”  That’s what it felt like when I took those Asgardian clothes.  When I went into that public bathroom, and I took off my clothes, and I put on the Asgardian ones, that’s what it felt like.  Asgard is the home of all vampires.  To the extent that any of us really have a home, Asgard’s our home, and I knew that.  And there I was, I remember looking at those clothes…  Which looked like a uniform, remember when I said how Loki’s clothes looked that way too?  Clothes were this really generic-looking uniform kind of a thing, dull black, and a little worn-looking.  And I put them on.  That’s another thing Asgardian cops always carry around in their cars, by the way:  A set of clothes.  And then if you need them, they’ll give them to you.

...Where was I?  Right.  Home:  Feeling putting on those clothes was like coming home.  But not in a good way?  Maybe it was more like walking into a prison cell, and knowing you’re going to be there the rest of your life.  It was a bad feeling, but not really bad, just sort of resigned.  It was like a lead weight had settled in my chest, like getting a terminal diagnosis, and you’re just doing the best you can, to try and accept it.

It was a horrible feeling.  But at the same time I knew this was the best place for me, I had to be with the Asgardians, because…  Why?   _Because I was scared for what I’d do to my friends, is why._  I was literally afraid of what I might do to Pepper and the others.  Her especially, but all of them really.  I’d think about how little she is, and how elegant.  I’d remember those rats in the warehouse, how I could smell them, and hear the blood going through their veins, and I’d wonder if I was going to lose control sometime, and do something to her, something like what I wanted to do to the rats.  And then I’d think about Rhodey, and all the sparring we always used to do, and how he’d always beat me.  I’d think that there was no way he could beat me now, and what if something happened.  God, thinking those things, and wondering…  I was so scared of what I was maybe going to do.  That was why when the cops said they were taking me to Asgard, Paso Robles, after I came back out, I went ahead and said okay.

I was expecting something like the resort in Vegas, but this was nothing of the kind.  Found out later, that’s because it’s more of a boutique thing?  If you know what I mean?  They keep this one open for Thor.  Winery _and_ a brewery on that place, you can imagine how much fun he has with that.  And they keep it open for Loki…  There’s a lot of story about that part, which I will get to later.  All you need to know now?  Place is important to Thor, and it’s important to Loki.  It does turn a profit, but not a lot of one, only since that’s not the the reason they keep it open, nobody cares.

Nice place, by the way.  You should definitely go if you get the chance.  

...Like I was saying, the cops took me there.  And I’m there in the back of the police car…  I was a basket case, remember, I said?  I’m lying in the backseat:  All these feelings were going through me, like, all these new feelings, and I didn’t know how to deal with any of them.  There were the little weird ones, like what it feels like to have just fed, which I was just finding out about, and then there were the bigger feelings.

Biggest feeling?  “What am I going to do to Pep, if I see her?  What am I going to do to Happy, what am I going to do to Rhodey, what am I going to do to Obie?”  That was huge, but it wasn’t the biggest thing, not right then.  Because I also knew I wasn’t going to have to deal with it for awhile, right?  I was at least going to have the time at the Paso Robles first, and I was hoping maybe it would seem easier after that.  But then there were the immediate-feelings.  Here’s the biggest immediate-feeling I was having:

_I wanted Thor to be there when I got there._  At the resort, I mean.  First thing I thought, after the cops mentioned there was a brewery there, like, the first thing that went through my head was, “Please god, let Thor be there.  Thor’s a friend, and he knows how to deal with mortals, he can teach me how, so I won’t have to say good-bye to my mortal friends,”  I kept thinking about that, and thinking about it, and I kept hoping.

I was, of course, completely disappointed.  Who was there when we got there?  Loki.  And it went just about as bad as you may be expecting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wish I could just make you turn around,  
> Turn around and see me cry,  
> There's so much I need to say to you,  
> So many reasons why.  
> You're the only one who really knew me at all. 
> 
> So take a look at me now,  
> Well there's just an empty space,  
> And there's nothing left here to remind me.  
> Just the memory of your face…
> 
> Take a good look at me now,  
> 'Cause I'll still be standing here.  
> And you coming back to me is against all odds,  
> It's the chance I've got to take.  
> Take a look at me now.”  
> \-- Phil Collins, “Against All Odds”

Scene:  This is me and Loki, from the weekend we spent together back when I was still a mortal.  Always felt like such a good memory to me, but then after I became a vampire myself, not so much anymore.  Now I’m not sure what I think.  Here goes, though.  Let me tell it.

First of all, he wanted to turn me.  Like, really wanted to, like it you could just see it.  Look in his eyes, maybe I’d drop this or that random comment, “That was fun,” I’d say maybe, “we should do it again sometime,” and he’d look at me.  Or I’d say, “We should get together again,” or, completely joking, “What are you doing next Friday?”  All those times he wanted to say something, and I knew he wanted to say something.  Because there was _something_ between us, he felt it, and I felt it.  Like a bond.  One weekend shouldn’t make a bond like that, but this one did, and then it couldn’t be broken, but I walked away from it anyway.

But the scene when he finally asked me.  I had my bag all packed.  Not difficult, there wasn’t much taken out, I was naked practically the entire weekend.  But what there was out of it had been put back in again, and I was all ready to go.  Car waiting at the door, that was how ready to go I was.  Valet sitting behind the wheel, fresh-faced kid (being a vampire, he was probably 500 years old, but you know, that’s what he looked like), and he’s looking at me like, “Well?  Aren’t you going to get on with it?”

I was still inside.  Doorway, sliding glass doors have slid open.  Loki’s maybe ten feet away from me, and he’s got this look on his face.

_Don’t go,_ that look was saying, and I could read it plain as day.   _Stay with me, do what you have to, to stay with me, I know you want it as much as I do._

I wanted it.  I had all these objections, that I stupidly thought mattered more than what I was feeling, but I did want it, I wanted it so bad.

This is me, ignoring what Loki wanted to say, and what I wanted to answer.  This is me, saying everything except what I was feeling:  “That was fun,” I said, “we’ll have to do it again sometime.”  Casual-Tony, suitcase in hand, standing there, not saying anything that was on his mind:  “That was really fun,” I said, and, “Next time it’s my turn,” and then this long list.  Casual blather, blah-blah, “My beach house,” and, “Dive bar in Malibu…”  There are dive bars everywhere.

And Loki was just standing there looking at me, and then he opens his mouth.  And I knew what he was going to say, and I was scared.  Why was I scared?  Told myself I was scared of what he might do, but I knew what he was going to do, AKA, nothing without my permission.  I was scared of what I might do, because I knew what he was going to ask me, and I was afraid that I might say yes.

And so I acted like an asshole instead.  Like the rudest, most oblivious asshole in the world.  “Yeah, it was great, it was wonderful, it was perfect,” I say.

Loki’s trying to get in a word edgewise:  “Tony,” and, “Wait,” and, “I want to talk to you, Tony.”

This is what I finally told him, after I finally had to admit what was going on between us:  “I’m not going to be a fang, Loki, because I don’t want to be a fang, I don’t want to be a monster.”

_A monster._  I remember I said that, and I remember Loki’s face turned dead white.  Then he turned away…  That’s why I knew how it was going to go when I saw Loki again at Asgard, Palo Alto, is because of what I said to him right before I left Vegas.

Here’s how it did go:  Cop car pulls up.  Asgardian cops, blah-blah-blah, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, to this official person, and that one.  Various flunkies and middle-management types, and discussion.  “A room,” “How long’s he staying?”  “Have you talked to Loki?”

They talked to Loki.  I sort of hung around.  I could describe what the place looked like, but you know hotels, you know what the lobbies look like.  This one was comfortable, the way an expensive hotel lobby should be.  Various amenities, fresh cookies, cold drinks, etcetera.  I remember noticing that I still wanted the cookies, and the cold drinks still tasted great.  I remember thinking how funny that was, considering how I’d just recently fed.  Human food, by the way?  Tastes like snacks, to a vampire.  Like how you can finish a full-course meal and still want a couple potato chips, or some dessert, it tastes like that.  But I digress.

As I said, they went in and they talked to Loki.  He was in the hotel office, and the door was open, and I could make out some of what they were saying.  “You know him, don’t you?” one of them says.

Then Loki’s cool voice:  “Stark?  Not very well.”  Then some more blah-blah-blah, mumbled voices.  I catch Loki again, “Let him go home, he’ll get used to it.”  

Mumble-mumble from the other guys, “Ten Rings, something.”

Loki’s voice changes.  “Then he’ll have to stay,” he says.

And someone else asks, “Do you want to talk to him?”

Loki says, “No, why should I?”

After that, some more time passed.  Then they took me to one of the hotel rooms.  More of a cottage, free-standing, a little way away from the main building.  Cute little Craftsman-style building... -- Whole place is Craftsman-style, very pretty, very Old California. -- ...Little cottage, nice bedroom, and one of those big, early 20th century bathrooms, and a kitchenette, all complete, but here’s the kicker:  You get inside the place, and you can see, the whole thing’s secured.  I mean, it’s not really noticeable, but I was there for over a week, I noticed.  And I had time to find out that the security worked.  Vampire-proof everything, all the way through.  I tested most of the vampire-proofing before I left, and I can tell you:  It works.

So anyway, they took me to this cottage.  That was supposed to look like The Home Away From Home For the Tired Traveler, all the amenities, and everything of the best.  Crystal glasses, complimentary bottle of wine from the management, mints on the pillows and so forth.  Then a couple guys come in, cops, maybe a step or two higher up in the hierarchy than the ones who had driven me there.

New cops questioned me.  I gave them the best answers I could, which wasn’t much, I was pretty tired by then.  They asked me and asked me about my connection with Master Raza, but I knew fuck-all about being a vampire at the time, I had no idea why they would keep asking about that.  “He turned me, and then he left,” I told them over and over, while they kept looking at me like I’m not answering their questions.  And I pulled it out of my memory somehow, that the one guy had said something about “collateral,” and I told them that part too, and their faces still didn’t change.  And then they went away, and I was left alone.

I could make this story really pretty, and tell you I thought about Loki, after they left.  But I didn’t.  I also didn’t think about what kind of trouble I was in, which would have made more sense, and I didn’t spend any time wondering just what the hell was up, between Asgard and the Ten Rings.  I was tired.  I slept.  Vampires sleep for a long time, and it was two days before anything more happened.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ventura Highway, in the sunshine,  
> Where the days are longer,  
> The nights are stronger  
> Than moonshine.  
> You're gonna go I know,
> 
> 'Cause the free wind is blowin' through  
> Your hair,  
> And the days surround your daylight  
> There,  
> Seasons crying, no despair,  
> Alligator-lizards in the air.”  
> \-- America, “Ventura Highway”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels like there's way too much going on in it. This is a fast-forward part, and I have done my best to make it readable, on my way to the bigger action parts. Please bear with me if there are flaws, okay?

Interlude, Loki and Paso Robles:  This has absolutely nothing to do with the story at this point, but the story at this point is pretty goddamn boring.  I figure why not. I'll get back to all the other stuff later.  Here’s something that happened afterward, when I went back to Paso Robles later on after everything was finished, and Loki and I were there.

He loves that place.  Loki, I mean. His history with Paso Robles:  He really loves that place, I mean, he _loves_ it. Thor’s got a brewery there, and he likes it well enough, but Loki loves it.  That’s because it’s where he grew up, or it was around there, anyway.

Loki, to me:  We were sitting out on the back patio, hillside sloping downward, and the view, vine-leaves dancing gold, in the golden California sunshine.  Birds singing overhead, faint smell of the ocean, which is just a few miles away.  And Loki turns to me, sun in his eyes, so he’s squinting just a little bit, and his hair, that nice dark hair, that’s usually so neat, and it’s blown all over the place by the ocean breeze.  And he’s smiling.  He looked just like a boy.  “I grew up around here,” he said.

300 years ago, rancho-era, Spain owned California.  Land-grants, straight from the King in Madrid, hundreds of miles in one ranch, that belonged to one family.  Loki’s family had one like that, and he told me about it that day.  He told me all of it, beautiful details, white house, adobe roof, Papa who was like a hero to him, and his family, who knows how many sisters and brothers.  He’s laughing, he’s smiling,and he tells me these things.  If you’ve only seen Loki in Vegas, you don’t know have any clue about Loki.  He’s not that angry guy he is there.  Real Loki is how he is in Paso Robles, where he’s happy.

...Well, I guess I’d better finish telling this story.  Where was I?  I’d just been questioned.  And I woke up the next day, and guess what:  More questioning.  I never did talk to Loki,he just kept sending his subordinates in to question me.  And they wanted to know what I’d been doing with the Ten Rings, and whether I’d coordinated to meet up with the Ten Rings, and a lot of stuff like that.

What you have to know about being a vampire:  The Father of your Nest always comes first to you, rest of the Nest always comes second.  And you don’t have to talk to anyone, there are ways of communicating without talking.

Asgardian cops wanted to know if Master Raza had been communicating with me that way, him, or any of the others of the Ten Rings.  They thought he might have said something, or told me something.  Their theory was that I’d been turned because of my connection with Loki (which wasn’t true).  Little more you need to know about vampires:  Ten Rings is a terrorist organization. they’re always trying to take down Asgard.  Cops kept asking, “Did they mention Loki?  Did they try to contact Loki, did they tell you to contact Loki,” etcetera.  But I kept telling them I didn’t know why the Ten Rings had wanted me, which I didn’t, not then, anyway.

Finally, they let me go, and I went home... -- By the way, the connection with Loki?  Had to do with my browser-history.  Just keep that in the back of your mind, sort of a spoiler-alert.  Now I’ll continue with the story. -- ...Okay, I go home.  To Pepper, and Rhodey, and my other friends.  Who still mean just as much to me now, by the way, as they did back when I was a mortal.  People need to understand this about vampires, we can still love, we can even still love mortals.

About that browser-history.  Like I was saying?  Mine had been being searched.  Really obviously, too, I could have seen it, only of course I wasn’t looking.  State-of-the-art StarkTech available for that, but he’d been using all the most obvious methods, and it was just that I never thought to look.  Why would I?  He was my dad’s best friend.

Why Tony Stark is never going to be a best-selling mystery-writer:  Because I always give away half the story.  I haven’t gotten to the part where I even knew about the browser-history yet, this was the time where I was still making some of that browser-history, which, shall we say, some people found so very important.

What I knew back then:  There was some reason why the Ten Rings had wanted me.  Vampires don’t turn everybody.  Even an outlaw organization like the Ten Rings eats way more people than they turn.  (Sorry.  Don’t want to freak you out by talking about eating people, but that’s what they do, they eat people.)  I knew there was something about me, some reason why I was different.  I searched everything, “Ten Rings,” and “vampires,” and “Asgard,” I kept trying to find it.  But I didn’t find anything, and everything just seemed very disconnected.  And so I’d get up again, I’d go try to distract myself.  Lunch with Pepper, lunch with Rhodey, lunch with Obie.

Obie:  (This was over lunch.  Pizza, from this place in L.A. that Obie says does a real Chicago-style pie.)  He said, “Stop _worrying_ , Tony, you’re going to get yourself all _stressed_.”  And he gave me this look, that I didn’t understand at the time.   “Why don’t you take some time off, and go see your friend?” he said, meaning Loki.  

How do you talk about someone that you’ve always trusted, ever since childhood?  How do you even begin to explain what it feels like, when you turn around, and you discover that they’ve stabbed you in the back?  I’m doing it again, I’m telling all the important parts of the story before I get to them, but he was my best friend, I thought I could trust him, even when I couldn’t trust anyone else.

Obie kept wanting me to step back, and I didn’t know why he wanted me to step back, I thought it was because he could tell I was distracted.  I kept telling him that I needed the distraction, that I had  to have something to do or I’d get bored.  I’d always go home and fire up the computer for more searches…  You want to hear the funny part?  I wasn’t even looking for the stuff that he was trying to hide.

No, here’s the really funny part:  I’d already found what he was trying to hide a long time ago.  I found it before I was turned, part of it anyway.  This was right after the first time I was with Loki, all I was doing was just noodling around on the computer, and there it was in the company records:  30 StarkPhones, military grade, name there too, Raza Al Whatever-It-Is.  Only of course it didn’t mean anything to me back then, why would it?

This was the waiting-period.  They’re always hard to write about.  I did have plans, I knew my whole life had changed forever, because I’d been turned, and I knew I was going to have to deal with that.

...No, I didn’t have any plans.  Here was my life:  Not much sleep, hardly any eating.  Pepper kept coming at me, Rhodey too, all of them really.  “Oh, let’s go have lunch, Tony,” they’d say, “oh Tony, let’s talk, don’t you want to talk to us,” and so on.

How do you talk to your best friends about being a vampire?  How do you get past just the basic things, just “No, I’m not going to eat you,” even, much less the hard stuff?  Later on when it finally came out about me, at least there was some context.  And we were in the middle of a crisis then, and the vampire-skills came in handy, but back then?  How could I even have brought it up with them, back then?

You got ideas?  ...None?  That’s still more ideas than I had.  I had zero.  Half the reason I was sitting at my computer making that browser-history was just because I knew I needed to talk to my friends.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Voyez-vous les zombis la?  
> (Les zombies et les loup-garous)  
> Voyez-vous les zombis la?  
> (Les zombies et les loup-garous)
> 
> Madame Zombi, elle est mechante (echo),  
> Mais sa soeur est plus mechante (echo).  
> Oui, sa soeur est plus mechante (echo),  
> Mais sa mere est la plus mechante (echo).
> 
> Le loup-garou il est sauvage (echo),  
> Mais son frère est plus sauvage (echo).  
> Oui, son frère est plus sauvage (echo),  
> Mais son père est le plus sauvage (echo).
> 
> Voyez-vous les zombis la?  
> (Les zombies et les loup-garous)  
> Voyez-vous les zombis la?  
> (Les zombies et les loup-garous)”  
> \-- Raffi, “Les Zombis et les Loup-Garous”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly detest Chapter 4, and if I ever go back and edit this again, that one dies, it dies so hard, just as soon as I can find a better way of transitioning Tony back to his job and his mortal friends.
> 
> ...But I'm feeling good about Chapter 5. I hope you like it too.

Obie:  I used to confide in him, did I tell you that?  It kind of makes me sick now, thinking about it.  And he was always around.  He was my dad’s best friend.  It wasn’t just the business thing, it was personal too.  I used to come home from school when I was little, there he’d always be.  And he’d be talking to my dad, he was always talking to my dad.  And I’d walk in the door?  Always a nice word for me too.  Little Anthony, here’s a toy, here’s something…  Couple dollars for ice cream cone, at least, I used to count on that.

I remember when I first noticed that he’d changed, after I came back from Asgard.  It was when I went to him about the deal for the StarkPhones.  And I showed him the computer trail.  “Look, I said, look at this deal, no correspondence, no record of payment,” Ten Rings shining out like a beacon, at the top of the screen, while I showed it to him.

And his eyes went straight to where it said Ten Rings, at the top of the page, and then they went straight to me.  And I saw something in his expression.  It was gone a second later, but it had been there.

His voice was just like usual, when he answered me.  “Tony, you’re tired, you’re stressed.  Don’t you see you’re overinflating things, Tony?”  And he patted me on the shoulder, Dad comforting Junior after a bad day at school kind of a pat.  “It’s understandable that you’d want to get back behind the wheel, Tony, but don’t you see you need some more time?  You need some more rest, Tony.”

Later on, his face…

I couldn’t rest.  How could I rest?  Everything in my mind back then was vampire, vampire, vampire (this is pretty normal for a new vampire, because there’s so much you’re getting used to).  And that was _my nest_. -- I’ve told you about the bonds we feel, I know I have.  -- That was _my Father_ , Master Raza.  I had all these mixed-up feelings going through me:  Master Raza was Father, but he was also an enemy, he was my enemy, and he was Asgard’s.

The Ten Rings was my nest, but I didn’t want them to be.  Master Raza was my Father, but I didn’t want him to be.  I wanted Asgard for my nest, and I wanted Father Odin, even if he was a senile old blood-drinker with a cable news habit.  Being aligned with the Ten Rings felt like I was on the villain-side, like the whole vampire world was divided into good guys and bad guys, and I was stuck on the wrong side forever.

Of course later on I found out that I wasn’t a hero or a villain, I was just a pawn.  I didn’t uncover that evidence, Pepper did.

Did I tell you about Pepper?  My P.A., smartest girl in the world, and the prettiest too.  She was the one that brought me the video.  This was after I started noticing that when I’d log onto my computer, half the time there’d be someone else logged onto my account as well.  Data stamps showed it was an office computer, but it didn’t show which one.  I asked Pep to do some of the research for me, just while I was trying to find who was snooping into my research, but I still wasn’t anywhere near done yet, when she had already hit pay dirt.

You don’t want to look at a video like that about yourself.  Someday, I’m going to have been alive for 300 years like Loki…  Someday I’m going to have been alive for 500 years, or a thousand maybe, but the memory of watching that video is still going to stay with me.

First, there I am, chained to the wall.  That was before Master Raza turned me, I was too scared to notice that anybody was filming.  Then that shot breaks off, next is me, limp and unconscious, right after I’d been turned.  Master Raza’s face, looking into the camera.  He’s smiling, with my blood still on his lips.  Wrist held up, showing the other little bloody place, where he’d fed me, and he’s grinning into the camera.  Cut to exterior of the warehouse, and you can hear my screams… -- _Jesus_. -- Then it ends with the close-up of a face.  Not Master Raza this time, but the other one, Bakar, the one that lured me to the warehouse in the first place.  Camera shot is his face, showing a smile, and the words…

“You owe us, remember Stane?” he said.  “ _Now we have some collateral, to make sure you pay up._ ”

__________________________

I remember watching that.  I remember Pepper’s face looking at me, while I watched it.  I remember turning back to her, and her face was…  Pale, that’s what it was.  It was beyond pale, it was almost green, and this look…

Look of horror, on the face of someone you always thought of as a friend.  Green-pale skin, and the look of horror, and inside of me, it’s awakening all sorts of things.  “ _Monster_ ,” I was telling myself, “ _you’re a monster.  You’re one of the Ten Rings now, you’re going to be just like them soon, and you’ll do what they do._ ”  Could I have trusted Pepper with Bakar of Master Raza?  No.  And there was this voice inside me, saying that I couldn’t trust her with me anymore either.

Then when she started to edge away, that was when I knew I had to say something.  She was already scared, and I knew I had to reassure her, or she’d be gone for good.

That was when I told her that I was a vampire.  And she’d already seen me being turned in the video, of course.  I tried to explain to her that there was a lot more to being a vampire than that, and that I wasn’t a danger to mortals, I didn’t want to be a danger to mortals, I wanted to be the other kind of vampire.  Voice in my head screaming the whole time that I didn’t have a choice what kind of vampire I was, that I was one of Master Raza’s children, I would be his kind of vampire, no matter what I wanted.  That was when I started fighting against that voice.  Didn’t know how long I could keep being who I wanted to be, or even if I could do it at all, but that was when I knew that I had to try.

And Pep’s looking at me, and I’m talking.  And the fear started to die down a little in her eyes.  What replaced it?  Doubt.  Skepticism.  That was better than the fear, anyway.

After awhile she says to me, “Obie’s working with these people?  Who are they, Tony?”

I told her about the Ten Rings.  Same stuff that I’ve told you, mostly, although I didn’t know all the details yet, back then.  Told her they were rebel-vampires, and that they were rebelling against the Aesir, and a little bit about what both groups stood for (as I understood it back then).  I told her what Thor had told me, that the Aesir believe in coexisting with mortals, but that the Ten Rings don’t care, they’ll attack anybody.

I told her about the cell phone sale that I’d found.  She told me, “It is just a little sale, Obie was right, why would we keep records on that?”

I explained to her a little bit about what those military-grade StarkPhones can do.  She ought to have known all that, she’s been at the company long enough, but sometimes people forget things.  And I said to her… -- I wasn’t thinking. -- ...I said, “Mortals are meat, to the Ten Rings, you’re food.”  I remember her face going green again, and I remember her starting to back away.

And I stopped her, and I made her come back in again, and sit down.  I remember her asking me, “What are you going to do to me, Tony?”  I remember the feeling of absolute shame that went through me when she said that.  Not because I could smell the food on her, even though I could (we all can, with every mortal we meet), but because I knew I was one of Master Raza’s children.  How long was it going to be, before I started acting on those smells?

But I told myself I wasn’t going to give in to the Ten Rings, not until I had to.  I was going to have to deal with Master Raza, and I knew it.  I was going to have to deal with Obie too, for that matter, but both of those, those were in the future.  Right now I had to deal with Pepper.  She had to trust me, at least for long enough that I could get her out of there safely.  After that, I was going to take care of Obie and the Ten Rings myself.

And I took her hand…  Her just barely letting me hold it, and I could feel the trembling of her hand, against my own.  ...I took her hand.  “Pepper, you can trust me,” I said.  “Right now, you can trust me.”

I told her, “Let me punish Obie, that’s one thing that vampires can do way better than you mortals…”  The green look back on her face hard, when I said that part.  “...I’ll take care of Obie,” I said, “and then I’m going after the Ten Rings.  But you have to get out of here, you aren’t safe here, Pepper.”

I thought she did get out of there.  I didn’t see her for days after that, and I thought she’d done the sensible thing, and left.  Good-bye StarkCo, good-bye Betrayer-Obie, and Vampire-Tony.  Best thing I can say about Pepper Potts, ladies and gentlemen?   _She didn’t leave_.  Later on, I was very grateful for that.


End file.
